Your words in my memory are like music to me
by Normalscaresme
Summary: No No No No. This isn't happening. This can't be happening. Blaine doesn't know how to function if this is happening. But Kurt's smiling at him and crying at him and it's the most beautifully depressing thing Blaine has ever seen.


**I don't own glee or the song _set the fire to the third bar_ by snow patrol and martha wainwright**

**It's rated T for one use of language so if that offends you or something stop reading now.**

No No No No. This isn't happening. This can't be happening. Blaine doesn't know how to function if this is happening. But Kurt's smiling at him and crying at him and it's the most beautifully depressing thing Blaine has ever seen. He doesn't need to hear the words to know what's coming next. They discussed it memories ago. Back when things were strange and new and beginning and Blaine never thought this day would arrive.

_They were drifting on Kurt's bed. He's not sure who was in whose arms, all he knows is that there were arms and legs, and KurtAndBlaine, and intertwined souls. There was no distinction between the two. Music slithered around them, voices ignored their own lyrics and sang with it, quiet and soft and stirring. Their voices harmonised together with their bodies._

_**I find the map and draw a straight line  
Over rivers, farms, and state lines  
The distance from 'A' to where you'd be  
It's only finger-lengths that I see  
I touch the place where I'd find your face  
My fingers in creases of distant dark places**_

**I hang my coat up in the first bar**  
**There is no peace that I've found so far**  
**The laughter penetrates my silence**  
**As drunken men find flaws in science**

'_Blaine, what happens when I graduate?'_

_**Their words mostly noises**_

'_Well, you get to wear a hideous graduation gown and then a nice man with a diploma—'_

_**Ghosts with just voices**__**  
**__**  
**__'You know what I mean' Kurt's lips fluttered over Blaine's, stomachs swooping, heads reeling and hearts dancing. _

_**Your words in my memory**_

'_Do I?' Blaine's voice was sleepy and warm and made Kurt want to shut down and just listen._

_**Are like music to me**_

'_I'll be at college, you'll be at school, what do we do?' There was no doubt in their minds that they would be together when graduation came around. _

_**I'm miles from where you are,**_

'_I hadn't thought about it' Hands quivered over skin, slow and lazy and abstracted, learning._

_**I lay down on the cold ground**_

'_I know most high school couples don't work out. It's just- this feels—'eyes connected, breaths hitched, words went unspoken._

_**I, I pray that something picks me up**_

'_Real?'_

_**And sets me down in your warm arms**_

'_Yes, but is that naïve?'_

_**After I have travelled so far**_

'_Maybe… how do we know it's real?'_

_**We'd set the fire to the third bar**_

'_That's what I mean.'_

_**We'd share each other like an island**_

'_So what do we do…break up?' it wasn't real, it was hypothetical, what ifs, something too far in the future to fear. Blaine had brought it up._

_**Until exhausted, close our eyelids**_

'_I don't want to.'_

_**And dreaming, pick up from**_

'_Then why did you bring it up?'_

_**The last place we left off**_

'_I don't know.' Music played, breathing slowed, hands grasped… 'A year?' A sudden crack in the equilibrium._

_**Your soft skin is weeping**_

'_What?'_

_**A joy you can't keep in**_

'_We take a year, I'll be in college, you'll be in school, we take a year to learn what's real.' Still hypothetical, still what ifs, still nothing to fear._

_**I'm miles from where you are,**_

'_A year's a long time.' Whispered reasoning, hushed voices so that the silence won't shatter._

_**I lay down on the cold ground**_

'_I know' _

_**And I, I pray that something picks me up**_

'_I don't want to.' _

_**and sets me down in your warm arms**_

'_Then why did you bring it up?' Bodies lay still, dared their minds to think about the future and willed them not to._

_**I'm miles from where you are,  
I lay down on the cold ground  
and I, I pray that something picks me up  
and sets me down in your warm arms**_

_Their conversation finished with the song. Hearts and heads and hands stopped feeling and moving and thinking. They agreed and they sang and they lay together. They watched the future cascade toward them in anxious anticipation._

'Blaine, you know I love you, don't you?' Blaine jerks back to reality, sudden, jarring, painful.

'Don't' abrupt, concise, piteous.

'I have to' Excuses, apologies, explanations.

'Please… don't' Begging, pleading, imploring.

'Please don't make me the bad guy Blaine, we both know we have to do this.' Hands clutch, eyes search, hearts break.

'I don't want to.' Laughing-between the two- bitter, jaded, ironic. A distant memory awakening in their minds.

'I'm sorry' ending, concluding, beginning.

'We don't have to, we can make it work, lots of couples last after high school.' Frantic, desperate, insistent.

'It's only a year…' Defeat, hope, regret. 'It shouldn't be this hard to say goodbye.'

'You once told me you'd never say goodbye to me.' Accusations, sorrow, guilt

'This isn't goodbye, this is just… I'm not going to say hello for a while.' Optimism, smiles, tears.

The first thing Kurt does every day is text Blaine hello. He always puts three kisses. The first thing Blaine does is make sure Kurt has texted him. He always replies with four.

'I don't want to end up hating you, Blaine. I don't want to stay with you and then two years down the line realise that we've made a terrible mistake and end up despising you. I don't want us to hate each other because we were kidding ourselves for so long that we ended up stealing each other's lives. When I think of you, I want to be happy, not bitter and angry. Please don't take that away from me. Please don't make me hate you. We both agreed we'd try and do this' More begging, more pleading, more crying.

'Don't cry, please don't cry, if you cry I'll cry. I'm sorry, I'm so, so sorry. Please don't cry.'

Whenever Kurt cries it ignites something vicious and primal and vengeful deep inside Blaine-The need to break the person who has reduced such a beautiful and confident boy to a quivering, crumbling, mess and then make sure that his boyfriend never has to feel that way again.

'And hey, look on the Brightside, you're the one that gets to be around all those hot college guys.' More optimism, more smiles, more tears. Words spoken too quickly, hearts and heads trying to understand each other.

'I love you.' Broken, final, raw. It is not just a declaration of love; it's a retraction of it.

'Wait' it's a command and a question and a wish.

'Blaine… we can't, I'm not strong enough, we'll give in. _please._'

'Look at you.' fingers destroy tears, it's the first time they touch since they surrendered each other's hands to exit Kurt's car. Kurt shivers and smiles and sobs just a little more. 'You just graduated high school! You have a party to attend in less than an hour and here you are sat in an empty coffee shop crying.'

'Please, please, please, don't do this. If I don't do this now I never will, and I'm not going to be able to, if you keep looking at me like that.'

'You're really pretty when you cry.' A roll of those infinite blue eyes and a slash of pink across pale cheeks. 'You don't want to spend the entire party wallowing. Take me with you, we can dance and laugh and watch puck spike the drinks and Rachel get really drunk. Take me with you and I'll hold your hand and take pictures and tell you how amazing you look. Take me with you and I promise as soon as it's over you can drive me back to my house and I won't fight or try to change your mind or make this hard for you at all. You can drive away and start your life and I won't interfere, but just please, _please_, let me enjoy this for a little bit longer.' Kurt has never been very good at denying Blaine, neither of them ever learnt to say no to the other.

So they go to the party, they laugh and smile and hope that their hearts can hold out for just a few more hours. Blaine _does_ tell Kurt how amazing he looks, and then he reminds him, again, and again, and again. He takes pictures of people mid laugh, their faces glowing-memories that won't fall from his mind- and keeps Kurt's hand safe in his. They almost forget that this is all decaying in the very hands they're holding. Almost. Puck _does_ spike the drinks and Rachel_ does_ get drunk. Kurt takes a moment to remind Blaine not to make out with her again and somehow she hears so Blaine finds himself singing _don't you want me _with her. By the end of it everyone is singing and dancing and living along with them, painful and pretty and perfect. Kurt just watches him with a melancholy smile teasing his lips, agonisingly gorgeous. Part way through the evening Blaine requests teenage dream and they slow dance to a song that's just a little too fast, nostalgic joy curling between them and holding them together. Anybody who happens to be giving them hateful looks right now can go screw themselves, because they are young and happy and sad and possibly very, very naïve and right now they know that these experiences could very well be the last memories they have of each other. They hold each other tight, existing and inhaling and absorbing, trying to engrain these emotions in their memories forever. Blaine buries himself in Kurt, Kurt's smell and Kurt's touch and Kurt's taste. Blaine's body is a mess, tatters of limbs held together by duct tape and staples. Kurt Is holding him together, as long as he is in Kurt's arms he can hold himself up, stop himself from falling to pieces. As soon as Kurt lets go he will be ripped to shreds. Broken pieces of Blaine will decorate the floor.

They feel the seconds slip through their fingers and run in the opposite direction. They want to go, want to be alone, want to be together, but at the same time they know that one step out of the door will be one step away from each other, one step closer to learning how to be Kurt and learning how to be Blaine, after so much time knowing how to be KurtAndBlaine.

They do leave, eventually. They make their way into Kurt's car, feeling more than seeing. Silence festers in the car, palpable, tangible, tasteable. Hands lock together, eyes force tears away, mouths itch with words. Kurt drives them out of town and pulls over in a clearing near some trees. Their eyes scream at each other. No No No No Blaine sobs over and over again. He doesn't say the words out loud, won't say them, can't say them. He made a promise to Kurt, to the boy he loves that he wouldn't make this hard.

'I love you, you know that don't you?' Kurt's the one to break the silence. _That _voice, _his_ voice, Blaine doesn't know how he will stand not hearing it every day. The thought makes his ears ache. Blaine blunders to the back seat of the car, rushing, tumbling, falling. Kurt follows.

They sit in awkward comfort, limbs tangling with other limbs and a sense of ease that feels very out of place given their current situation. A sorrowful smile is playing on Kurt's lips and he looks so perfect that Blaine just wants to kiss him. So he does. Kurt doesn't push him away but he doesn't kiss him back either. He sits and he lets Blaine move over him and he lets the teardrops wander down his cheeks. Their burning tears mix together, their own personal rain come to drench them, and hurt them, and make them feel.

Blaine remembers when he kissed Kurt in the rain. Kurt had confessed to a love of clichéd romcoms and how ever since he saw breakfast at tiffany's he wanted to kiss someone in the rain. So of course it was Blaine's duty to drive straight to Kurt's the very next time it rained. It didn't matter that it was 11pm at the time or that Kurt was having a sleep over with Mercedes, Rachel, Tina and Quinn. Blaine had knocked on the door, received some strange looks from Finn and Burt, and marched straight into Kurt's room, wordlessly taking his hands and guiding him outside. Just when Kurt had started to laugh and complain about his clothes Blaine kissed him. Fierce and passionate and tender. They must've stood for at least five minutes, shivering from the cold and trembling from the heat, until Mercedes came to bring Kurt back inside and their everlasting moment perished where they stood and flowed away with the rain. They had kissed in the rain like every other couple in a bad movie who gets their happy ending. Only there's a reason you never get to see what happens after the happy ending.

Blaine kisses him harder, trapped in a memory he will never relive. Kurt gives in then, kissing back with everything he has and more. They battle with one another, pushing and pulling and sharing. Blaine wants more, is overwhelmed by the sudden, daunting realisation that he may never hold Kurt again. He _needs_ him, needs more, needs, needs, needs. 'Will you…' what does he say? Make love to me? Too romance novel. Have sex with me? Too up front. Fuck me?

He doesn't know what to say so he gives up trying to figure it out. 'Let's…' he runs hands over Goosebumps, quivering muscles and trembling emotions, he feels. Kurt understands, he always knows what Blaine wants to say better than Blaine does. Blaine wonders who will understand him now, when he doesn't even understand himself.

'We won't be able to let go. It's going to hurt us.' It's absent minded disallowing, they can both tell it's not worth fighting and yet they both feel they should.

'It's worth it.'

So they do. They make love/have sex/fuck. It's bodies and heat and dying love and a part of them they never knew existed before they met each other. It's burning and searing and overwhelming and electric. They share something that could never be communicated physically or verbally or metaphorically. It's words and actions and emotions and each other. Everything is so exhilarating it hurts and hurts so much it's exhilarating.

Then it's over, and neither of they can fully comprehend the fact that they may never feel this way again. They hold each other and Blaine's not sure who's in whose arms because they are both so wrapped up in each other. Entangled, entwined, enveloped. KurtAndBlaine.

'I'm sorry, I'm so, so, so, so sorry. I can't—I don't—I—I—I-Please don't hate me… I can't… I'm so so so sorry' Blaine clutches at Kurt, fisting his hands into his shirt and clinging.

'For what.' Kurt tries to lift Blaine's head but he just nestles it deeper in kurt's shirt.

'for bringing it up, for coming up with the idea, for not being able to let you go, for not being able to come with you, for—for everything. I'm sorry. I'm so so sorry'

'You're sorry for being younger than me?'

'Yes' they laugh, strange and strangled and surreal. The last thing either of them wants to be doing is laughing and yet they can't stop. They hold each other and laugh and cry and feel completely foolish and naïve and young.

Kurt pulls his phone from his pocket and before either of them is fully aware of what's happening, a song is playing.

**I find the map and draw a straight line**

Stomach's swooping, heads reeling, hearts dancing

**Over rivers, farms, and state lines**

'_Courage'_

**The distance from 'A' to where you'd be**

Slow and lazy and abstracted

**It's only finger-lengths that I see**

'I really, _really,_ care about you.'

**I touch the place where I'd find your face**

Music plays, breathing slows, hands grasp

**My fingers in creases of distant dark places**

'_So, it's just like 'When Harry Met Sally'.'_

**I hang my coat up in the first bar**

Sudden, jarring, painful

**There is no peace that I've found so far**

'_you move me, Kurt'_

**The laughter penetrates my silence**

Abrupt, concise, piteous.

**As drunken men find flaws in science**

'_I think it's adorable, I think you're adorable.'_

**Their words mostly noises**

Excuses, apologies, explanations.

**Ghosts with just voices**

'_You did win. So did I. We got each other out of all this.'_

**Your words in my memory**

Begging, pleading, imploring.

**Are like music to me**

'_I'm never saying good bye to you'_

**I'm miles from where you are,**

Hands clutch, eyes search, hearts break.

**I lay down on the cold ground**

'_I'm crazy about you.'_

**I, I pray that something picks me up**

Bitter, jaded, ironic.

**And sets me down in your warm arms**

'_they can't touch us or what we have'_

**After I have travelled so far**

Ending, concluding, beginning.

**We'd set the fire to the third bar**

'_May I have this dance?'_

**We'd share each other like an island**

_Frantic, desperate, insistent._

**Until exhausted, close our eyelids**

'_I came here for me, because I can't stand to be apart from the person I love.'_

**And dreaming, pick up from**

Defeat, hope, regret

**The last place we left off**

'_You always zig when I think you're about to zag'_

**Your soft skin is weeping**

Accusations, sorrow, guilt

**A joy you can't keep in**

'_you take my breath away.'_

**I'm miles from where you are,**

Optimism, smiles, tears.

**I lay down on the cold ground**

'_I was so proud to be with you.'_

**And I, I pray that something picks me up**

Ending, ending, ending…

**and sets me down in your warm arms**

'I love you…' 'I love you too'

**I'm miles from where you are,**

**I lay down on the cold ground**

**and I, I pray that something picks me up**

**and sets me down in your warm arms **

Their voices carry on just a little longer than the song and a sudden, painful, nauseating sense of finality overcomes them. Reality has come to prise them apart and is doing so brutally, callously and indifferently, wrenching them apart where they haven't yet separated. They are still one entity. KurtAndBlaine.

Kurt presses their foreheads together, eyes lock, breaths tickle, bodies conjoin. Blaine manages -somehow- to whisper the words that have been playing through his head all evening.

'oh, there you are, I've been looking for you forever'

They fall apart, duct tape and staples be damned, because if this is happening, nothing can keep them together. Hands tighten around each other to the point where it's painful. They grip each other and try to pretend that none of this is happening. It takes them long enough to say good bye under normal circumstances- yes they would never admit it but they have done the 'No you hang up' thing- it's always one more kiss before they have to part, and that's knowing that they will see each other the next day. KurtAndBlaine doesn't know what to say, what are you supposed to say? When you may never see the person you love again, _and_ you're doing it by choice, however misguided and delusioned that choice may seem now. They take their time memorising how it feels to be one person.

'Kurt, you have to go. I know you don't want to now, God I don't want you to either, but every extra second we spend together is going to make every one we spend apart ten times harder.'

'I don't know how to not love you'

'We'll learn together.'

'We'll learn apart.'

'I love you.'

'I love you so much it hurts.'

…

…

…

'Kurt… Drive away.'

'I can't.'

'You're the strongest person I know, you can do anything you want… Courage'

'I don't want to.'

'I love you, but we have to say good bye… Good bye.' Blaine was trying to sound in control, after spending the whole evening convinced he would be the one being scraped off the floor and guided towards his own house, he's surprised he's even capable of words, he tries to be strong for Kurt -he really does- but the tears have already marred his face and there's no denying the tremble in his usually controlled voice.

'I'm not going to say hello for a while.'

…

…

…

'Blaine... You have to get out of the car.'

'But that would make it real.' His voice is hushed and scared, like when he was little and hiding under his blanket from the monsters. Who knew that there were scarier things than monsters out there?

'Courage.' Maybe Blaine should finally learn to take some of his own advice.

'Blaine kisses Kurt, or Kurt kisses Blaine, it's lopsided and sweet and excruciating. Then Blaine leaves the car, falls from the car because his legs don't know how to work, and shudders his way to his front door. He doesn't look back.

Kurt drives down Blaine's agonisingly long drive, gripping the steering wheel so tight he's sure to leave nail marks in his hands where they connect. He tries to breathe and tries to see and hopes to god that he doesn't crash because he's crying too much. He doesn't look in his mirror, can't bear to face Blaine opening his door, wearing the clothes he only wore because he knew Kurt loved them.

He drives home and crawls to bed and his father casually asks him if he brought Blaine home, without looking up, and then frantically asks him what's wrong, when he does look up and sees him breaking. Kurt doesn't know how to tell his father all the many things that are wrong, instead he cries and clutches and ruins his father's plaid shirt- which isn't necessarily a bad thing but somehow makes him cry more- He begs and gasps and chokes and hopes that he remembers how to be Kurt.

Blaine crawls up the stairs and into his bedroom. Pictures of Kurt scar the walls and Blaine can already see the shirt he forgot to give back to his boyfr—his ex-boyfriend. He pulls the shirt on and crumbles into his bed, pretending Kurt is holding him, enjoying the pain that is already washing over him. Learning how to Blaine

They said they would wait a year, but Kurt also said he didn't want to force Blaine to wait for him, that Blaine should enjoy his senior year, and secretly thought that within a few months the younger boy would find someone else, that Kurt would become a memory trapped in a few pictures and concealed in a shirt he had purposely left in Blaine's room.

They said they would wait a year, but Blaine also said that he wanted Kurt to be happy. He knew that Kurt would be in New York, surrounded by many more talented, good looking, and altogether more worthy men, who wanted to be with him. That when Kurt got out into the real world Blaine would become nothing more than contented memories when someone asked Kurt about his first boyfriend

**I'm miles from where you are,**

**I lay down on the cold ground**

**and I, I pray that something picks me up**

**and sets me down in your warm arms **

They sing, in their own beds, in their own houses, in their own thoughts, a song that makes them want to cry and sing and scream. They hope that one day they will wake up without the need to digress back to KurtAndBlaine, to being one Soul.

They think, they hope, they beg, that maybe they know how to be Kurt And Blaine, That they can learn how to be Kurt And Blaine, that they can survive being Kurt And Blaine.


End file.
